Nov 15 Three Days In Iceland.

Can you fall in love with a country within a three day stay ? or that the sights as you fly over it take your breath away? and that you plan your return visit before you have even left ? well Iceland has done that to me. I haven’t travelled a huge amount in my lifetime so far, just to the usual places like France, Germany, Prague, Spain and the UK a few times. So my travel knowledge is limited to the usual tourist things to do. The only other place I would travel to again in a heart beat would be Paris. There is a magic and beauty about the city that I haven’t experienced anywhere else. Iceland now that was a different thing entirely story. I have always been drawn more to beautiful landscapes than urban settings and even my photos would be more natural subjects than architecture. Maybe this is why I fell in love with this small but powerful country.

We flew out from Dublin about half ten on the Thursday morning with Iceland Air ( this was not early enough to fly) . The flight was perfect with clear skies all the way and Iceland Air are a good company to fly with. We watched like kids as we left Ireland and headed out over the open sea, I was so excited because we had saved hard for a year to do these three days. The first view we were greeted with was some small islands just off the coast but then as we drew closer to land it was like seeing the surface of the moon. The landscape was white with fresh snow and even craters could be seen as we flew towards Keflavik airport.

We landed after a little over a two hour flight to the first taste of the cold and some sleet. It wasn’t as cold as we had imagined. We had made the decision to hire a jeep before we went over as we made huge savings by doing so. The other huge saving we made was by hiring a wifi modem for the few days rather than using our phones but more of this in another post. We were collected from the airport by the shuttle driver for the hire company and we collected Daisy, that’s what we called her. Here is our wheels we got from Icerental 4x4 at the airport. Yes we did stop in the middle of the road to take this photos.

So once we had signed our rental contracts, got our google map lady ready and reminded ourselves a 100 times we need to drive on the wrong side we headed for Reykjavik and our hotel. We found it no problem and driving is easy there because their speed limits are so slow you have time to see where you are going. We stayed in the city centre in the Center Hotel Plaza. This hotel has the perfect location for a city stay and handy parking near by. The food was good and the hotel was really nice. Over the evenings we walked around the city and as our hotel was really central nothing was far to get to.

We didn’t do much shopping its just so expensive but we did do the Viking Saga museum. This place was so cool, their history is just mental and amazing in equal measure. The city has so many shops and houses that look like they fell straight out of a fairy tale book.

We didn’t have much time on the Thursday to see much because we had a Northern lights tour booked for that night at 8pm. We walked to the bus stop and loaded onto a bus to go on a night time adventure. We eventually got to see the lights after a long drive but they were worth waiting for. Our guide also as we drove filled us in more on the history and culture of the country.

We were awake early on Friday as we wanted to drive the Golden Circle and it didn’t disappoint us in any way. We say a Geyser gush out of the ground, we drove through Pingvellir National park which was like a winter wonderland and also -7c. We stopped here and had a coffee and looked at some lakes.

After we had looked around we headed to our next stop which was Gullfoss waterfall. This is a place that if you look up Iceland anywhere you will probably come across it. Gullfoss is a monster of a waterfall and makes anything we have here look like a little trickle. We could hear this monster in the carpark which is a five minute walk away. When you get near it the noise and force just takes your breath away. The water was dark grey, loud and strong this was something out of the end of the world movie. I was nervous being near it even though you can’t fall in I didn’t feel comfortable near it. It’s a must to see though because we have nothing on this scale.

On the saturday we headed up the west coast first but the wind was just mental and some roads were closed so we headed back and down the south eastern coast to Seljalandsfoss, which is the waterfall at the start of this post. It was wet on the Saturday at times but that didn’t stop us. You can walk behind this waterfall but everyone was getting soaked so we didn’t venture. We really wanted to get as far as the black sand beach at Vik but the weather was against us so we headed back to the city.

Over the three days as we drove around the one thing that struck us no matter which direction we travelled out of the city was the beauty of the country. No matter which direction you looked there was beauty as far as the eye could see. From huge mountains, waterfalls, ponies and farms it is a constant changing landscape. Our three days were full of sight seeing and even though we did full days on the road we didn’t see half of what we wanted to. We wanted more days, more time and more roads to travel.

On the Sunday morning early we handed Daisy back and got the shuttle back to the Airport. There was no chat really as neither of us wanted to leave. I knew I hadn’t seen all I wanted to and that I needed to come back. I would go back now if someone would send me !. The flight home was again with Iceland Air who I would fly anywhere with and home didn’t disappoint in beauty. We flew into the sun rise and I was glad it was cloudy because I didn’t watch Iceland as we left it behind.

It is hard to express in words really the draw this place has, the power and beauty of it unless you see it for yourself. I have left a small piece of my heart there and will return soon to drive the ring road and I feel that won’t even be my last visit. If you get a chance to go, GO ! it won’t let you down I promise.

Over the coming weeks I am going to share a few more posts for anyone thinking of going. These will be about the city and shopping, travel and jeep hire and some money saving tips for when you do go.